It was Christmas Eve… In the drunk-tank

On xmas eve at around 3:30 in the morning there was a big brawl at a Halifax bar, The Liqour Dome, that ended with 42 police officers arresting 38 drunk and disorderly patrons.  No word on how it all started.  City and Provincial officials are scrambling.  This is all coming right on the heels of The Mayor’s Roundtables on Violence, where binge drinking and the problems of bar concentration in the downtown core were at the forefront.  The Dome’s liquor license has been suspended, and meetings are scheduled.

The Liquor Dome is not a single bar, rather a collection of smaller bars all interlinked together.  There is usually a mix of bands (in The Attic) and DJ’s.  It is largely a skin bar.  That is, the women who go there are usually scantily clad and looking for attention, and the men who go there are all hopped up on testosterone and looking to seize any and all opportunities to get laid.  There are no stories coming out about how the brawl started, but I’d be willing to bet that it involved the possibility of drunk sex being interrupted on a lonely xmas eve… 

Some are blaming the dollar drinks, but patrons protest saying that if bar drinks were more expensive, they’d just drink more at home.  I would have to agree.

Some are blaming the bouncers, saying that they, in fact, exaccerbated the situation with their high-levels of testosterone and low-levels of conflict resolution training.  Having gone to The Attic part of the dome, I could totally see how this was true.  The bouncers that I have come in contact with at the Liquor Dome are largely certified jerks.  

Others are saying that the size of the Dome is the problem.  It’s too big, with a high concentration of the aforementioned patrons.  And the crowds are generally younger, and racially diverse.  Race was mentioned as a contributing factor, but largely in regards to the police response, where it was said that African Nova Scotian women were targeted once the paddywagons rolled in.

The police have come under attack in all this as well.  Unsurprising, since there is a general distrust of law enforcement in this city… especially among the student populations.  Now, the police actually did come under attack in this incident, with one being injured.  It is a scary state of anarchy when youth are hitting cops over the head with beer bottles outside of a skin bar at 3:30 in the morning on Xmas Eve…

So… what to do, what to do?

Apparently, suspend the license on the bar immediately, which is the action that the Alcohol and Gaming Authority took almost immediately.  Though, a temporary solution, it should be considered that all the traffic that the Dome attracts, will now be diffused into other bars in Halifax where other dynamics are also occuring.  The bars to watch from the Dome closing are Bubbles Mansion and the Palace… two of the other leading skin bars in the city.

In any case, going Downtown to drink and dance and party just got a little more dangerous.  Not only because of a displacement of Dome refugees… but also because authorities are going to be a little more sensitive, a little more demanding of order on groups of people who ultimately are so drunk they have no control over their actions.  

As noted by Frank Palermo of HRM by design during the roundtables, there is a huge problem with all the nightlife fun being concentrated in a single area like downtown.  People need to have options of nightlife fun in their home communities and then they won’t be coming from all over the city to a single hotbed of sex and booze.  There are a wealth of areas that might sustain hip clubs and dance spots all over HRM… The Quinpool Road area, Gottingen Street, Clayton Park, Bedford, Cole Harbour, and Dartmouth… why oh why are there no hip clubs in Dartmouth… Because people are migrating into the downtown core to drink and party… 

I do find it interesting though, that you never hear about these problems happening at places like The Economy Shoe Shop, or Tribecca… which attract a substantially different clientelle.  Which leads me to believe that perhaps it’s not the size of the establishment or the cheap drinks or the bouncers that are the problem, perhaps the problem is with the patrons that frequent them.

Or perhaps the problem is too much booze (a substance that leads to uninhibited external displays of confidence) and not enough pot (a substance that leads to contemplative internal reflection… or at the very least causes head spins and calling it a night).

How to maximize Facebook privacy options…

The phrase “Facebook Privacy” has a couple of layers that I’m going to try and deconstruct. 

The first, and the more oxymoronic layer has to do with the data-whoring that occurs between Facebook and it’s partners.  First, know that all of the information you contribute to your own Facebook profile, becomes the property of Facebook.  Second, know that Facebook shares this information with anyone (or any corporate entity) that is a third-party partner.  Unfortuneately, a complete list of Facebook’s third-party partners is unavailable, but sometimes you can get hints through the “sponsored polls” that sometimes pop up on the mini-feed.  Third, know that Facebook direct advertises based on your digital demographics.  And Fourth, know that everytime you add an application, you are sharing all your Facebook profile information with those third-party developers.  Sometimes these apps are created by existing and reputable websites… sometimes, these apps are created by “Joe” or “Brian” or “Sally”… and what they are doing with your Facebook profile information is unknown. 

Not only is the information and content you upload part of this shared data, but also the interaction that occurs between the profiles… how active a user you are, who your connections are with, how many groups you are a member of, how often you look at your ex-boyfriend’s profile… all the information that shows up on your mini-feed which tracks and records your movement on Facebook.

As a user, at this level, there is really little you can do to protect your privacy… Though you could, I suppose, enter in all false information, friend strangers, and completely misrepresent yourself and your interests… but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a Facebook account now doesn’t it?

Most people don’t really care about the protection of this type of data.  In this way, “privacy” is really just a word with no real meaning… or rather, the word is defined by Facebook in terms of who is and isn’t allowed access to the data.

However, I’ve heard a number of stories from people who are very concerned about the other layer of Facebook privacy.  That is, the information they can keep private from other users.  The biggest example of this being in the realm of employment… potential employers checking out Facebook profiles and determining hiring based on that profile, and existing employers using Facebook to keep tabs on their employees. 

Some people get furious when their privacy is violated by employers, or any individual or institution using Facebook to get insider information on them.  Though, it’s difficult for me to understand this, because of course employers, individuals and institutions are going to use all of the resources available to them to protect their own interests… that’s just the way it is.  In fact, the whole concept of “Internet privacy” to me is a laughable one.

But, there are ways to put up a line of defence between the virtual representation of your self and anyone checking up on you who doesn’t have Facebook “clearance”.  The privacy settings on Facebook are actually quite impressive.  And in about 15 minutes you can be sure that all those drunk pictures of you that your friends keep uploading, and the curse words in your status updates, and kept well away from prying eyes.

First of all, ever wonder why you can view some non-friend profiles, but you can view others?  The overall profile settings allow you to decide who can and can’t see your full-view profile.  If you click on the “Privacy” link along the top of a Facebook page you are taken into the master settings.  Click on “profile” and the first drop-down menu allows you to choose between… “all of my networks and all of my friends” (which is ALL of the networks that you are associated with on Facebook and all of your friends) “some of my networks and all of my friends” (which is everyone in your main network, usually your city network, and all of your friends) and “Only my friends” (which means only the people on your friends list can see your profile).  The last option is ideal, if you are worried that the contents of your Facebook profile could be accessed and viewed for purposes that it isn’t intended to serve, such as potential employers.

As you scroll down the page, you see you can set this option for all of the little things in your profile, including tagged photos of you and all the individual applications you’ve added like “Human Pets” or “Vampires” or whatever silly quizzes and weirdo things you can do on there.  Some privacy options also include ”everyone” which means that everyone with an Internet connection can view that aspect of your profile.

The next tab is “Search”… tired of getting friend requests from everyone in your high school who seems to be just searching Facebook using their yearbook?  You can make it so that no one can find you in an Facebook search.  This option also makes you disappear from other people’s friends lists.

The News Feed privacy options allow you to remove your actions from your own profile mini-feed and the news feed of your friends, so that no one (other than Facebook of course) can track your movements or get alerted when you write on people’s walls or change your profile information.

Now, when you poke or message or send a friend request to someone they can see parts of your profile, but not your whole profile.  Which parts of your profile you want them to see is up to you, and can be set in that option.

Now this is all good for keeping your information protected from people who aren’t on your friends list… but what about those people who are on your friends list that you don’t want to delete, but do want to limited the information they can see.  For example, you don’t need your mother seeing pictures of you doing shooters off a strippers belly.  Or, your boss sends you a friend request and you don’t know whether to accept or not, but think if you don’t accept, they will think you have something to hide…  This is where setting up a “Limited Profile” comes in handy.

The Limited Profile option allows you to choose which friends can see your whole profile, or just the parts which are appropriate for your mom, or your employer.  If you use Facebook for both personal and professional communication, the limited profile can allow you to fragment your identity into these two parts… 

The default settings on the Facebook privacy options are open.  So if you haven’t taken the time to go in and change them, you are leaving yourself open to data double misuse or misinterpretation.  As a user of these sites, it is important to explore the “privacy” and “terms of service” for them… and unless you do, the only blame to fall if you don’t get that next job because of that subversive group that you joined, or a pic of you partying, falls on your own shoulders. 

  

    

A brief history of the future (non-faction)

If someone asked me how I thought Western Civilization was going to crash back in 2006, I probably would’ve spewed off a bunch of seemingly possible triggers and big corporate instigators… Haliburton’s greed or Wal-Mart evil… war or a nuclear disaster maybe… or possibly even global warming or a virulent strain of something or other…

In 2006 I probably wouldn’t have guessed that it would be the makers of Little People and Barbie.  I probably wouldn’t have guessed that it would be our everyday objects that we came to fear, like our toothpaste and our soda pop and our dinnerware.

I mean, at that time we were having enough problems with ensuring our own local food supplies were secure… we were making our selves mentally ill with stress and anxiety… we were too busy focusing on the threat of the “other” to realize that it was our very own existence that was the threat to our existence and survival.

But in 2007 our lifestyles turned against us. 

While many great thinkers and philosophers tried to warn us of our slow descent into the depths of social chaos… In 2007 we started to experience it.  We no longer had to be warned, because it was too late. I mean, that it was going to happen was fairly clear to many; our governments, our economy and the environments, all of that which we had so carefully constructed around ourselves for the previous 200 or so years, were turning against us.  But our faith and trust was shattered when the recalls began and it was revealed that we had been lied to for a very long time. 

The lies were perhaps not lies, but more myths about the promises of a society where comfort and leisure and profits were god-given rights to those who worked hard and took full advantage of the bounties that it afforded.  That our leaders lacked foresight is hardly their fault, rather ours for giving them such extreme control over the way things were.  And gullible we were, us, the simple self-gratifying species… we all just complacently waited until it was no longer in the realm of man’s control.  Our destiny became the ultimate example of the self-fulfilling prophecy.

Never did it occur to us that we might become such voracious consumers, that consumption, especially the kind that exists from the inside out, might give us a belly ache, or cause indigestion… Never mind that it would actually poison us slowly at first, then very rapidly.

It started with a chance finding of popular children’s toys containing lead paint.  Inspector number twelve noted later, “I just had a feeling about this batch.”  Millions of dollars worth of preschool toys had to be recalled and the foundation of trust began to crack.  People were asking… “how on earth could this happen?  If the highest of safety standards aren’t being placed on products for the most vulnerable of our society… what about our coffee mugs and tupperware?” 

Justifications continued to be made, all in the name of savings and surplus discounts.  “We outsource production because those chinamen can produce it cheaper than us gawl-darnit…”  said one politician as he chewed on a cigar, “It’s an isolated event…”

But it wasn’t an isolated event… the toy companies wanted to ensure thier customers that the children were safe, so they announced more scrutiny on the products entering Western markets.  Well that was a disaster, because the more scrutiny they imparted, the more recalls occurred until finally, the rate of recall caught up to the rate of production, and the toy industry largely halted right around Xmas, 2007.  It was the worst season for retailers in department store history.

Then, right before planting time in mid 2008, a rash of unexplained deaths began to occur.  The poor, the very young and the very old were among the first to go.  As the autopsies were released, an internalized sense of panic overcame us… all of us… lead, mercury, arsenic and/or antifreeze poisoning were found to be the cause of death in 68 of the first 75 bodies. 

Teams of analysts were hired to try and pinpoint the source of the poisoning, finding that one common link… the product that was behind it.  But as soon as they thought they found it, another death would occur which wasn’t tied to any of the products they suspected… toothpaste, tylenol, kraft dinner… the rumors ran wild.

“I heard it was in pantyhose,” said one supermarket clerk who was shortly fired for speaking publically of the crisis. 

After about eight months of investigation, the surgeon general called it off, “The results from our studies can only lead us to conclude that it was a variety of products responsible for this consumer nightmare.  I am calling for a nation-wide recall of all products not manufactured in a country which has the strictest levels of productuion standards.”

Within days, the retail economy imploded.